The proposed study will examine a set of hypotheses concerning the effects of life events, social support, social endorsement of drinking, and psychological resources on drinking practices (alcohol consumption and related-problems) in a two-wave panel survey of a representative sample (N=l,000) of adults (18-64) in a SMSA area of upstate New York. The model postulates that life events (especially the undesirable life events) will be the triggering factor having an impact on drinking practices. Social support, social endorsement of drinking and psychological resources are factors which intervene (mediating or buffering) between the triggering factor and the outcome variables. It is hypothesized that these intervening variables also exert direct impact on drinking practices, independent of their intervening effects. The study hopes to contribute to the literature on the psychosocial process of drinking and drinking-related problems and integrate it with the larger theoretical concerns in social epidemiology of distress and disorders. The proposed study has three distinctive features: (1) a explicit model specifying the triggering and intervening processes, (2) use of a representative sample of community adults, and (3) use of the two-wave panel design to explore the causal relations among the variables. The study will also incorporate other demographic and control variables (e.g., sex, age, marital status, religiosity, SES, family drinking history). The study will require four years of work. The first year will be used for sampling, pretest and data analysis, and questionnaire design. The two waves of data will be collected from the same respondents in Year 2 and Year 3. Data integration, analysis, and report writing will be the major activities in Year 4.